Advocate Sex Survey Results

I want to comment just a bit on the results of the Advocate's sex survey. The reason I'm commenting just a bit is because, well, they're exactly what one might expect. No real surprised. The only surprise, I'd say, is their choice to emphasize the total answers on each question instead of answers for men and women. For each response, they give the total number of people who checked the box, then how many men did, how many women, and the percentage of all people who gave that response, irrespective of sex. That gives some pretty skewed percentages.

For an example, let's look at question 9: During your lifetime, how many different same-sex partners have you had sex with? These are the percentages:

None: 5.60%
1: 6.95%
2-5: 20.24%
6-10: 12.72%
11-20: 12.18%
21-50: 14.44%
51-100: 9.92%
101-300: 9.58%
More than 300: 8.40%

Aw, how...conservative! The most popular category is 2-5 sex partners. That's not unreasonable at all! I have straight male friends who've had sex with more parters than that. Nearly a third are less-than-fivers. And people say that gay men are promiscuous...

But look at the percentages (they show you raw data, but not the percent) for gay men alone:

None: 4.51%
1: 3.42%
2-5: 14.32%
6-10: 11.46%
11-20: 13.28%
21-50: 17.32%
51-100: 12.50%
101-300: 11.98%
More than 300: 10.76%

The numbers themselves aren't THAT different, but there's a clear skew upwards. The most populated category now is 21-50 (I can only think of two friends who may fall in this category or above, and they ain't straight). Not even a third are less-than-teners. Over 10% have had more than 300 partners! Crazy mo-fos.

I actually wonder what these answers look like for straight people. I mean, given this isn't a scientific survey, but I think the Advocate's readership is probably fairly representative of the gay community. Stick this survey in Maxim, and what are the results? As I mentioned in a recent entry, I have a bit of a Jesus/Solomon complex (the male version of the Madonna/whore complex), and I want to know how Solomony these straight boys actually are.

One more weird result: Over 40% of male respondents said they had their first same-sex sexual experience before they turned 15. 18.75% had their first experience before they turned 12. I don't really know what to make of that. Hmph. Brain dead today.

Starchild Gets Earthly Medicine

A few days ago, a judge ordered that Starchild Abraham Cherrix receive traditional chemotherapy against his will and the will of his parents. Abraham is a 16 year old from Virginia with Hodgkin's. He wishes to receive alternative treatment in a Mexican clinic, because the first round of chemo he endured was too painful and draining. He believes the alternative treatment will cure him. Right.

The judge has received a lot of shit for his decision to force Abraham into conventional therapy against his will. The only guy who seems to be in favor of the decision is Orac. In his post responding to the blogger response to the ruling, he poses a few questions for those who oppose the decision. As my instinct says the decision is wrong, I want to look at those questions (and probably, in the end, concede that the ruling was the right one):

1. If Abraham and his parents chose crystal therapy or, like Christian Scientists, decided that they would use prayer alone to "cure" Abraham's lymphoma, would you be as adamant in your belief that the state should not intervene. If not, why not?

Yes, I see no difference between the alternative treatment he plans to use and truly bizarre forms of treatment. As far as I'm concerned, this is about the right of an underage patient and his parents to refuse treatmet. I'm assuming he's not using public funds for his alternative treatment, because in that case the ruling would be much more obvious.

2. If Abraham were 14 years old would you still think that the state has no business intervening in his care? (Consider the case of Katie Wernecke, which is often mentioned in the same discussions as Abraham's.) What about if Abraham were 12 years old? 10 years old? 8 years old? In other words, is the right of parents to decide medical care for their children absolute, and, if it is not, what are the specific situations in which the state is justified in intervening to overrule the decision of the parents?

This is really the key question here. It's also why I think, in the end, Orac is right. I do think Abraham is old enough to make his own decisions. If he wants to slowly kill himself (really, why is suicide illegal?) that should be his perogative. Unfortunately, whereas I think the age of consent for pretty much everything should be 15 or 16, the law thinks it should be 18. They err on the side of caution/dickishness. I disagree with our cutoff, but we need a cutoff. We can't evaluate every case on an individual basis and decide whether the candidate is mature enough to sign his own permission slips. So, before he's 18, we can't assume Abraham is giving consent to be killed. In that case, the parents are guilty of neglect, abuse, whatever. So, with annoyance at the age of consent, I concede that this means the judge was probably right.

3. Are there any circumstances you can envision in which the state should intervene to direct the medical care of a child against the parents' will? Please give a specific hypothetical example of such a case and explain how that is different from that of Abraham Cherrix.

This is another good question. The obvious issue is the child's consent. I'm sure many of the same people who are objecting to the decision would be equally upset if the judge ruled the other way, but Abraham did not agree with his parents' wishes. In other words, if the child desperately wants to live, but his parents are forcing him into slow suicide, this would be pretty bad. But, as discussed in post 3, the child can't actually consent. Therefore, any case that could be considered abuse--anything that's bad for the kid, independed of whether he wants it, because his wants have no legal standing--is cause for government intervention.

4. For those who think that the Hoxsey treatment is a valid medical option for the treatment of relapsed Hodgkin's lymphoma, please provide valid scientific and/or clinical evidence that it is any better than doing nothing. Testimonials do not count.

N/A, as is the case with #5.

So there it is. It's a boring answer perhaps: Kids should be able to sign off earlier, but since they can't the judge was justified. All right, Abraham. It's going to hurt. I'm sorry, but maybe because of it you'll live to see a day when you can legally kill yourself slowly.

What's the Big Deal?

So, Bush vetoed the embryonic stem cell bill. What's everyone so worked up about? It's just a piece of legislation that would have increased the size of government and OH MY GOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE HE VETOED THE STEM CELL BILL. It's possibly the most worthwhile piece of legislation that's passed through Congress in Bush's six years. It's true, I don't think the bill went nearly far enough—we really need therapeutic cloning to achieve the greatest promise of stem cells—but it would have allowed for much expanded research that could eventually create therapies and perhaps even cures for some of the most widespread and horrible diseases we face. Sure, those therapies are a ways away, which is exactly why we need to get cracking now. So by the time my parents are old enough to be at serious risk for a lot of these illnesses, and if not then, by the time my friends and I are, we will have some embryonic stem cell-related options.

I'm truly horrified by this veto. I'm horrified that the government won't fund research that could help and save so many people.

On to the self-centered part: Why am I so much more pissed off by this than I am by anti-abortion legislation? The basic reasoning is the same: A life is sacred as soon as it is conceived. I wholly disagree with that, but that's the argument, so why does it piss me off much more in one circumstance than in another? There are a few reasons I can pinpoint, some of which I'm OK with, and some of which I'm less proud of:

The Stakes are So Much Higher
According to the senators, therapies developed from embryonic stem cell research could help 100,000,000 Americans. That's a third of the country. I doubt that means now...I assume that means over the course of life. But in order to get those numbers for abortion, two-thirds of American women would get an abortion at some point in their lives. I don't know the exact stats, but I doubt the number is THAT high. Also, while not being able to get an abortion can ruin your life, hey, it's not Alzheimer's. Your ambitions could be shot, you can end up in the poorhouse, and you can be totally emotionally drained (I can't find the study, but research shows even people who want children are less happy after they've had kids. Seriously.) but you can control your limbs. You can remember who your parents are. You probably won't die. I'm cool with this reasoning...this isn't one I feel too guilty about.

Abortion's Currently Legal
So the threat doesn't seem THAT real. On the other hand, embryonic stem cell research really, really isn't happening. There's not a fight against it; there's a fight FOR it, and the burden's on us to save people. Great. This doesn't sound like reasoning I should feel bad about except for one thing: Abortion is illegal in South Dakota. In fact, embryonic stem cell research isn't illegal per se, it's just crappily funded. So there's really some parallel. And I just don't care that much about people in South Dakota, because I don't know them. I know that's not very good reasoning, but it's how I feel, because I'm only human. And on that note...

Madonna/Whore? Aren't We So Over That?
Why, yes, we are. But "if you have sex, what do you expect?" isn't the same thing as a Madonna/whore complex. OK, I should definitely back up a little: I believe—firmly, mentally, but perhaps not quite internally—that people deserve no less sympathy because they "brought something on themselves." I'm just as sad that you died because you stuck a fork in a socket as I am that you died because a stray bullet hit you. If you have a heart attack, I don't care whether you weigh 500 pounds or you run five miles every morning and eat naught but health food. I'm really sorry you had the heart attack. At least that's how I'd like to believe I feel. But there are some aspects of being human that suck—the need to divide the world into in-groups and out-groups is a biggie—and this impulse toward desert is one of them. Another study I can't find shows that people are much less likely to give charity to someone with an STD than they are to give charity to someone with a genetic disorder.

This is the reason I'm ashamed of. In the vast majority of cases, a person who got pregnant had some hand in that. On the one extreme, she very willingly slept with someone without any birth control while she was obviously ovulating. On the other extreme, she was raped. Most cases probably fall somewhere in the middle, with people being slightly negligent about their birth control...either not using it, possibly because they were drunk or misjudged timing, or being spotty with it or using condoms that were kept at the wrong temperature or moisture level or something. Should this matter that a woman had a hand in getting pregnant? No, it shouldn't at all. Once she has an unwanted pregnancy, she is a woman in need of a medical procedure. No questions about the past. But does this mitigate my anger relative to babies with type I diabetes, teenagers with MS, and 50-year-old with early onset Alzheimer's? Sadly, it kind of does. Ugh. I need to wash myself; I feel dirty.

The point is: This bill should have gone through. Blastocysts are not people. Not even close. And Sam Brownback insulted the intelligence of every member of the Senate. You go find the clip on YouTube. I can't bear to watch it again.

As a sidenote on the Madonna/whore complex thing. I've realized I actually kind of have one, but for men. Let's call it a Jesus/Solomon complex. I only deal in Jesi. And there aren't many of those. You know that. You've met men.

On Barres On Women in Science

Stanford professor Ben Barres has an editorial in Nature this week arguing against what he terms the "Larry Summers Hypothesis:" Women don't make as strong a showing in science because of innate ability.

First of all, I think it's more than a little unfair to term this the Larry Summers Hypothesis. Summers said in his notorious speech, "different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search" is the third most important factor in why women aren't achieving. He also said the most important factor was the "high-powered job hypothesis:" Men are prepared to commit more hours to their jobs, at least partially because women have to choose between high-commitment jobs and family life. The middle factor was intrinsic aptitude, and he frames the difference in aptitude as a difference in standard deviation, which only affects the extremes to a severe extent. He doesn't deal with average differences. So that's why I think the name of this hypothesis is unfair.

Briefly, dwelling on Summers, Barres indirectly acknowledges that Summers is on target with his MOST important reason why women aren't achieving: "Women faculty, in particular, need help from their institutions in balancing career and family responsibilities." This means there is a real effect of women not being able to commit time. Great. You two boys are in agreement.

Barres spends relatively little his space actually arguing that the data say intrinsic aptitude is not a factor, although some of his numbers are compelling. A third of top Putnam scorers are women, and a study of 20,000 kids showed no difference in math scores between the genders. I'm a little suspicious of that because, again, we're not looking at means, just extremes, and there are about 5 kids in that 20,000 who fit our definition of extreme. Finding no difference there is still not really significant. (Someone tell me if this is flawed statistical reasoning) [Update: I realize in the morning light that this is, indeed, horrible reasoning. With 20,000 subjects you can easily determine a curve and a standard deviation and extrapolate this to the extremes, even if your extreme data doesn't match this perfectly. Still, I would like to see that these curves and not just their averages are identical.]

Most of Barres's essay is showing evidence that there is real, real discrimination. This is nicely underscored by his personal story. Ben Barres was Barbara Barres until only about 10 years ago, and so he is a unique (read: rare) position to compare how people treat men and how people treat women. Admittedly, it's not a scientific comparison...the difference between Barbara and Ben isn't PURELY gender; how a personality and set of mannerisms interact with one's gender is a strong, strong factor in how a person is perceived. Still, his position is special and should be considered. So after he transition, people treated him and his research with an obscene increase in respect. The money quote from the editorial is from a professor who saw him give a talk right after he transitioned, "Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but then his work is much better than his sister's." Ooh. Zing.

The most persuasive part of the essay, I'd say, is the evidence that women face discrimination, "one study found that women applying for a research grant
needed to be 2.5 times more productive than men in order to be considered equally competent." There is perhaps too little statistical evidence in the editorial, but there is some.

And some of his studies are a little shaky, "A 2002 study did find a gender gap in competitiveness in financial tournaments, but the authors suggested that this was due to differences in self confidence rather than ability." Suggested? I don't yet know why to take his word on it. Even if the problem is self-esteem, I don't want to take anyone's word that this is caused by discouragement and not by nature. Gimme more info.

In sum, he convinces me that there is legitimate discrimination, but I am not totally convinced that both ability at the extremes and willingness to forsake family to commit are not equally important factors. If that study on productivity is totally legit, that would strengthen his claim a lot. I'm just initially wary. It's a decidedly important editorial, and I think this conversation should be ongoing. I'm glad he's kicked it up again.

I ♥ NY

Judge R.S. Smith, your ass is mine.

(No, NSA, I don't mean that literally. More to the point, I don't mean that seriously. I very clearly don't mean it literally. Anyway...)

Today the highest court in my favorite state in the land ruled against gay marriage. Now, when I saw the verdict, I was only minorly pissed. I'm not intimately familiar with our state constitution (heck, I could barely tell you how a bill becomes a law...or how a bill becomes a bill, for that matter). It was entirely possible that sending the issue to the states was the best step. That is, it was entirely possible, until I started reading the decision. Motherfucker! What a douche. I really just disagree with most of his premises, his methods, and his conclusions. I'll go through them until I feel like stopping, which will probably be after the "can rationally believe..." section.

OK, Domestic Relations Law implies clearly that marirages are to be between members of the opposite sex because of terms like "husband" and "wife." I buy that. Moving on to the Constitution...

The plaintiffs want to say the law goes against both the Equal Protection Clause ("No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws of this State or any subdivision thereof") and the Due Process Clause ("No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law"). Judge Smith (hereafter Jud Smee) acknowledges the many benefits of marriage.

He writes, "The critical question is whether a rational legislature could decide that these benefits should be given to members of opposite-sex couples, but not same-sex couples." So this is what he wants to figure out. Is there any possible rational reason for denying these benefits to same-sex couples--or, to phrase it in the way he seems to think of it, to grant them only to opposite-sex couples. First of all, I think that's a major distinction. He really seems to see marriage not as a fundamental right at all, but as something the state can choose to grant to someone if it foresees state benefit. I don't really think this is the right way to look at it...marriage, as the conservatives tell us, is an institution that has been around for a very long time. We expect marriage. It's not a privilege the state decides to grant...it is an expected part of adult life. Moving on...he concludes that there are two rational reasons why the state would support marriage for one kind of couple but not the other.

"First, the Legislature could rationally decide that, for the welfare of children, it is more important to promote stability, and to avoid instability, in opposite-sex than in same-sex relationships." What's his reasoning for this? The "vast majority of children" are born in heterosexual relationships. It's true. But since when do we oppress the minority of children? There are children regularly, if not frequently, being born into gay relationships. He says that the legislature could find that the unions that bring about children (straight ones) are too unstable, and it is to the benefit of children to stabilize them via the tool of marriage. Since gay couples don't have kids by accident, this doesn't apply to them. I suppose this could be rational...if we were just coming up with the idea of marriage today. "Hey, there are too many babies without fathers. Maybe if we provide an incentive for them to stay, they will!" Does he really think any rational person TODAY thinks of marriage solely as an institution to give love children stable homes? To protect kids born as a "result of accident or impulse?" Because people can't control their genitals, when they fuck and fuck up and have kids, we need to bribe the parents into taking care of them. Is it just me, or is this part of the reasoning astoundingly odd?

"There is a second reason: The Legislature could rationally believe that it is better, other things being equal, for children to grow up with both a mother and a father." Oh, this old saw. I need to let Jud Smee continue here, for just another sentence: "Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like." Oh, well, if intuition and experience say so, then it must be rational to believe it. First of all...intuition? Aren't we sure intuition is frequently mistaken. I'm sure I intuit many wrong things...first impressions of people, physical laws, etc. The only way intuition gets any credit is if it's based on experience or research, so let's turn to that. What experience does he mean? He talks about a "general rule" that this is so. Where does this come from? Has he really compared and contrasted living situations? Does he think most people have? The experience that YOU benefited from both of your parents doesn't count. One example is not enough to base a rational decision on. And just because many people make irrational conclusions, doesn't make those conclusions rational. (Plus, every adult I know is messed up. Every day, living models are most likely mediocre if not downright bad every day, living models.)

He goes on to talk about social science studies: "[T]he studies on their face do not
establish beyond doubt that children fare equally well in samesex and opposite-sex households. What they show, at most, is that rather limited observation has detected no marked differences." I've looked at these studies and, yeah, they're based on small samples. But they're based on statistically significant samples and they do show no marked differences. While this may not be totally conclusive, it does mean there's no scientific reason to think kids will do worse. Jud Smee acknowledges this but says the lawmakers could proceed "on the common-sense premise that children will do best with a mother and father in the home." It's not common sense...it's totally unbased! Since these studies show kids do as well, if people had any experience with kids raised by two moms or two dads, they'd know (collectively) that those kids do just as well. Intuition or "common-sense" without this experience is meaningless and not a basis for a rational decision.

OK, that's all the Jud Smee I can take for now. His decision just irked me. I'm not editing this, so there may be random errors...sorry for those. And, yeah, it's annoying how he talks about "sexual preference." That's poor form, Jud Smee. Poor form, indeed. Well, hopefully if/when Spitzer's in charge of this state he'll push gay marriage through the legislature. It's time we realize we're fucking people over and not helping anyone. No, legally it's not a PERFECT parallel to Loving v. Virginia and all the interracial marriage stuff, but I'm convinced the emotions behind it are the same. Gay people are a convenient "other." Come on, kids. Gay people aren't the other...they're not exactly like straight people, but I think if the crazy right people got to know a few, they'd realize they're just people...as fucked up as straight folks, but just as great, too. (And occasionally, just a little bit greater. Shh.)

A Weekend in the Country

BEST WEEKEND EVER. No, I really mean it. I actually don't think I've ever had a better weekend, both in terms of actual happenings and my spirits throughout the three and a half days. I mean, I wound up on all fours in the dirt vomiting into the side of a mountain and it was STILL the best weekend ever. I don't recommend that particular activity—I recommend drinking lots of water before the hike and avoiding the migraine—but I do recommend going to your friend's family's place in the Adirondacks with a bunch of your favorite college pals for a long, July 4th weekend. And while I'm recommending, I recommend keeping sexuality out of the whole thing and concentrating on fresh air, great scenery, physical activity and amazing friends. Rock the fuck ON.

Friday after work I took the PATH to Hoboken to meet Vijay at Stevens, where he's currently post-docing. I definitely heart the PATH...cheaper than the subway and just as fast. We met up with Emily and Haninah and hit the road with some shockingly good Greek food. When we got to the cabin in bustling Keene, NY, it seemed like nobody was there. We walked in, dropped our stuff on beds and followed faint laugher to the bunkhouse where lots of wonderful people (I believe at that point it was Becky, Dave, Brad, Casandra, and Sarah) were finishing up a highly competitive game of Monopoly. We grabbed beers and just a few minutes later, Jen and Lee walked in, bringing our number to a respectable 11. We chatted and joked until about 3 am and all crashed for the eve.

Saturday morning we all convened outside for breakfast. Whereas the night before we were stunned by the stars, then we were stunned by the mountain view. I played a mean game of Bocce with Jen and Dave, who then had to leave for his grandfather's funeral. Yeah, not the highlight there. We also got introduced to the awesome dog, Lulu, pictured with Brad at right (I really like that shot). We, now Daveless and Leeless due to the funeral and general exhaustion, respectively, took a short hike. The top of the mountain was just about the windiest place ever, so we didn't spend too long up there, just long enough to let Cas celebrate Canadia Day (that's that weird moose-ish country, right?), as you can see below. Saturday evening we stopped at the deliciously neighborhoody Noon Mark Diner before a great fireworks display. The friends devised a firework rating system that eventually had to be normalized. We said the newly rated fireworks must feel like people from our grade who got 1600s on their SATs and will now be thought less-than-brilliant students when they attempt to boast. Poor newly marked 7s on the firework scale. Woe to the firework of moderate size with only one explosion.

On Sunday more people arrived. Woo! Alexandria showed up, Hannah in tow, and Brad went to grab Daniel Effon and came back with both him and Noa Wheeler: two great surprises in the "people I've always really liked but never spent quite enough time with" category. I went with Jen, Lee and Alexandria to ice skate at the Olympic arena, where there were four rinks, none of them open to the public. GREAT. So we went to the lake next to Lake Placid and played word games with Daniel and Noa. Much fun. We headed to a great place called Caribbean Cowboy where I had a totally rockin' blue cheese burger and sat with Brad, Cas and Daniel (who has one of the world's winninger smiles). Good table. Good times. That night was hanging out in the pavilion, a wood gazebo about 50 yards from the cabin. Alexandria did some mad fiddling to Hannah's guitar background and we roasted s'mores in the fire.

Monday was a mad rush to get crepes for Jen, who'd been wanting them bad since two years ago when she visited the same place. We made it by noon, when they'd told us they stopped serving the day before, but it turned out that on Mondays it was 11:30. Well fuck you, too, crepe place! So Lee, Sarah and I headed back to go hiking (Jen kindly drove us), while Alexandria stayed with Brad's car, which dropped off Cas on her 18 mile run (training much?). We hiked up Cascade, one of the 46 Adirondacks over 4000 feet. Things got so sweaty Dave and the other guys had to take their shirts off. What a shame. Can't you feel my salty, wet tears? Right. The climb was harsh, and on the way up, I realized my head started throbbing every time we stopped, but I didn't think much of it...heads will throb. Besides, we were playing some serious Botticelli. Apparently Sarah Gustafson is the most cultured person in the world. We spent an hour getting her down to "Renaissance Italian man involved in music, but not mainly a composer, player or commissioner, starts with S ends in US." She kept fending off our stumpers! But really, can you get that? It wasn't until Becky said "maybe an instrument maker?" that we all simultaneously turned around and screamed "STRADIVARIUS!" By that point we were victoriously on the glorious summit. Woohoo! And that's when the headache started to kick into gear. About halfway down the mountain I told them I needed to stop: My stomach was NOT doing well. After a few minutes, I told them to head up a few yards, I'd be there soon. Which is how I wound up on my hands and knees in the dirt, vomiting in the woods. My entire body buzzed afterwards. My limbs felt ridiculously light, like I could hardly control their movement. I did the vomiting thing once more, but we made it down, and when we got back into the house, despite being as sweaty and dirty as I've ever been, I crashed on my bed and slept for an hour.

When I got up and showered, the bbq in the pavilion was ready. The food was great and the migraine proved to be excellent X-treme catharsis. I felt buzzy but totally calm. After dinner we gathered round the fire (of doom!) and sang folk songs, including my new favorite, "The MTA Song," a political ditty about a man who gets stuck on the Boston subway for life due to a sudden fare increase. The only way to prevent yourself from ending up like poor Charlie is to "Vote for George O'Brien!" It's pretty hilarious. The other song I'm obsessed with post-trip is Silvia Nott's "Til Hamingju Island," the Icelandic entry in Eurovision 2006 that Vijay played in the car. Totally awesome. After dinner it was to bed, Alexandria now next to me, thanks to Haninah's unexpected (HA) absence.

The following morning was all about waffles, packing up and heading back. And that's all there is to tell for now folks. The best weekend ever concludes. Now to make it the best week ever: Hey, NY Supreme Court...want to rule for gay marriages? That'd be good.

For Which It Stands

Bravi to the 34 Senators who saved us from the worst amendment of all time! Boo to the 66 who thought it would be a good idea to amend our Constitution to limit our freedoms. To outlaw flag-burning/defacing would be the least American thing in the world. This country is so great because we're allowed to speak out against our leaders, allowed to speak out against our laws, and, yes, allowed to speak out against the principles this country was founded on, even through the fairly offensive means of flag-burning. The soldiers who fought under our flag didn't fight for the Stars & Stripes, per se, they fought for what they stand for: freedom, justice, and democracy.

If we should allow Nazis to march (we should), if we should allow Pat Robertson to say Ellen DeGeneres caused Katrina (we should...she didn't...or I'll never believe James Hansen again), we should allow people to burn the flag. And the fact that most people supported this amendment reminds me how much I disrespect the average voter. All these mofos with their "us-them" mentalities. Our goal in life is not to squash the enemy...it's to strive toward better things. Sure, that sometimes involves squashing the enemy, but that's not the end, just a means.

In any case, here are the 34 Senators (including Joe) who aren't a disgrace to America:

Akaka (D-HI)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Chafee (R-RI)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Jeffords (I-VT)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Kohl (D-WI)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (D-CT)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Sarbanes (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)

We Are Family

Since the last post was depressing, I'll follow it up immediately with something lighter. Yet another study came out today (done by the same people who've done all the previous studies to the same effect) showing that men who have multiple older brothers are more likely to be gay. With every older brother, your chances of being gay increase by about a third. Interesting stuff. One theory for why this is the case says that mothers eventually develop a certain immune response to all the foreign testosterone in the womb. So the boys don't get the typical amount of androgens at the point where the brain might develop an interest in the fairer sex. Nobody claims this accounts for the entirety of homosexuality (I mean, there are TWINS who have different sexual orientations...albeit fewer identical pairs, so genetics are involved). Still, here's a question:

Of the gay men you know, how many fit this pattern? When I mentioned this to V a week ago (before this specific study came out) he said it fit very well with the guys he knows. I'd always thought it didn't really fit, but then I realized, while I do know a bunch of gay men without older brothers, I can't think of any that have straight younger brothers. Maybe I'm not thinking of someone totally obvious, but here's the round-up, as far as I can think in this tired state:

Gay men I know with no straight younger brothers:
Greg
V
Mike L.
Lebowitzes
Perhaps other twins
Eric H.
Eric S.
Romero
Sergi (gay enough for my data)
Billy R.
Trevor McG.

Gay men with younger brothers whose s/os I don't know:
Jason F.
Chris P.
Steve B.

Assuming all three "don't knows" are straight (no idea), that probably means nothing. If only one is straight? I don't know. There are also a lot of gay dudes I know from college but don't know their sibling situations at all. Oh well, please let me know of gay men you know with definitively heterosexual younger brothers.

Well, Bah

First, a question: Given everything we know about the NSA domestic spying program, is it unethical to bait them? I mean, sure, it's probably totally unconstitutional (blah, blah, blah), and sure, there's a good chance they may eventually use the information they've gleaned for matters other than national security. But assuming their intentions are pure (you can do it!), should we really be wasting their time by writing emails saying, "Crusaders for Zion are da bomb!" Because it really is so tempting, but given that this program may actually help national security, I think it's wrong to bait them. But we can see how seriously I take this by, oh, the presence of this blog entry. By the way, I'm convinced that every terrorist emailing in English (why?) has put the word "bomb" back instead of whatever codeword they were using and preceded it with "da" and followed it with several exclamation points. They're totally going to blend in with the 14 year old girls in the minds of the government. God, I hope not...

Second: I was groped on the way to work today. ARGH. I was walking along, admittedly spacing out a little more than is perhaps prudent (but it was 9:15 am, not exactly a crazy hour), and all of a sudden there's a hand on my breast. I flicked it off with my wrist and gave the guy the same "what the fuck?" look I give to cars that cut me off when I have a walk signal. I kind of wish I had, like, stood up for womankind and done more (e.g., broken his arm, told the traffic cop, etc.), but I was mostly just embarrassed that I looked vulnerable and interested in getting to work and reading about science. I was minorly shell-shocked for the rest of the walk.

In any case, it didn't improve my view of men at all. I'm not entirely convinced men don't walk around wishing they could touch anyone they find the remotest bit attractive. Clearly they don't touch them, because they know that's very wrong and inappropriate (and even the ones who do only do it when they believe they're not going to get into trouble). But that doesn't convince me that they don't all have that impulse. I kind of think they do. And it made me realize more than ever that I'm not with the vast majority of people who believe your goodness should be judged based on how adept you are at overcoming your sinful impulses and living ethically. I think your goodness is determined by whether you have those impulses or not. Your ethical character is how you act, but that's not what I look for in people, at least people I want to be close to. I want the people on the streets to be ethical, but I want my friends to be good. I want to like most of their impulses.

This is, I think, why I'm generally repulsed by most men (at least the straight ones). I don't care how they actually treat me as much as what their ultimate goal is...what they're aiming for. And I feel like every guy I've ever met has a big sign on his head saying "Looking to hook up," "Will make small-talk to make out," "Will buy dinner to get laid," or whatever. Ew to it all. I think I make fun of asexual people so much because in some weird way I know I'm one of them. No, I'm not actually asexual, but if I'm not interested in having sex (or anything approaching it) with any real people, I'm not THAT far off.

All right, this entry has far surpassed the TMI level, considering everyone I work with has this url. GREAT. Don't mention it at the office kids. Right-o.

Wordplay

Just saw Wordplay with Brad and Adam. Those people put me and my mad x-word skills (finished puns & anagrams last week!) to SHAME. Now I'm inspired to write, although I have to think of a great theme and go from there. But first, today's puzzle while watching my funny news. I feel like a loser for not doing them every night. Yay, puzzles!

How To Be A Thrifty Addict

Prices vary from place to place...we've all seen gas in rural America or even New Jersey and nearly wet ourselves. Prices can also vary within one area between items of different quality. A couch, for example, can cost anywhere from, oh, $100 to $10,000. Then again, depending on the price, you'll be getting a vastly different couch. The $100 couch, if it's not used, will be ugly, small, uncomfortable and it will probably fall apart in two weeks. The $10,000 couch will be obscenely luxurious and every time you sit down you'll fall asleep. If the rest of your living space isn't beautiful, it will stick out like a sore thumb. But is there really THAT big of a difference in quality between different varieties of drip coffee? I've made up a bar(ista) graph for Manhattan:Since the names are a little hard to see in the jpeg, I'll review: Gray's Papaya: $.25, Cart at 42nd and 9th: $.50, Cart at 22nd and 5th: $.65, Tartare (an independent shop on 9th b/w 45th and 46th): $1.00, Slave to the Grind (best coffee shop everrrrr): $1.50 (I think), Starbucks (in Manhattan): $1.79.

This is a pretty serious gradient of coffee prices! The most expensive (but really nothing special) is over 7 times pricier than the cheapest! That's over 3.5 times more expensive than the cheapest one that isn't a "special deal."

You may have seen the New York Times article on saving money post-college. It says to cut out your $3.50 latte in the mornings. Well, you don't need to cut it out to save money...just switch to drip coffee, preferably of the fitty-cent kind. And even if you're stuck on quality coffee, get it at an independent place, if you can find one near you. The $1.79 at the 'bucks is simply absurd. And so not worth it.

That's the most domestic advice I've ever given. Tally-ho, my sweeties!

Statues

On Sunday, the American Theater Wing gave out the Tonys...to many of the wrong people. A jukebox musical (although supposedly the best of the genre) won for best original musical, and Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone got dicked over by the dude who plays Frankie Valli and LaChanze. Admittedly, I haven't actually SEEN Jersey Boys or The Color Purple but, first of all, I'm so sick to death of people winning for impersonations--fuck Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, fuck Jamie Foxx in Ray...hell, fuck Johnny Depp in Pirate of the Caribbean; they're all great actors, but why give them their top accolades for channeling real people?--and second of all, I hear from my most trusted sources that neither of them was as awesome as the Sweeney Todd folks.

But despite the slightly unfortunate outcome, the evening was stellar. I dragged V and brought Adam to Greg's party in his apartment. The guest list was: Greg, me, V, Adam, Megan (Greg's roommate), Mike (Greg's other roommate), Rob (Mike's boyfriend), Ashish and Rachel (Greg's friends, a couple), Stephanie N. (awesome glee clubber whom I don't see enough...and Greg's friend), and Courtney and Marcello (roommates, and friends of Mike and Rob). I think that's it. It was great...what can I say? Watching theater with some of my favorite dorky men...making brilliantly hilarious catty comments with Greg and Vaughan...eating the delicious finger foods...staring at Mike's seriously overpumped arms...what else could one ask for in an evening? Well, deserving winners, I suppose, but not much else. Good times, great oldies.

But no KOOL 96.7! It's gone with the wind (say it with the long I). There is now no New York oldies station, and that's really, really depressing. I suppose my classic rock station is now as oldies as it gets. Shame, that.

So, today's been one of those hideously annoying days of perpetual pseudo-deja vu. About once every 45 minutes my mind quickly remembers a scene...whether it's from a dream or real life, I can't quite tell. But before I can actually place it or absorb what it is, it's gone, and I can't remember the glimpse I got. It's really quite frustrating. I know from experience (this happens from time to time), that try as I might, I will never be able to figure out where the scenes are from (they're all from the same thing, I think). I just need to accept it for the day, and I'll wake up feeling normal. Still, it's always disturbing when your body or mind betrays you. It's like feeling seriously nauseated...a constant you always count on is suddenly disturbed beyond your control. While the snippets feel intimately familiar when they come into my mind...who's to say they're actually from something, even a dream? It's wholly possible that they're just made up but have familiar feelings associated with them. It gives you perspective on how much of consciousness is controlled by hormones and not by actual thoughts. Creepy.

Pull the Switch

So, we got new interns at Seed this week. I'm pretty sad to see the old interns go...they were a very cool crowd, and hopefully I'll keep up with at least one or two of them. Anyway, one of the new interns is none other than Emily search foil Anthes, former Editor-in-Chief of the YDN. This is frickin' hilarious. In theory, I have a higher position at this company than a girl who spent her entire college life competently slaving over an (I'll admit it now) high-quality daily paper. Of course this is all a big farce...she just needs an internship to get her MIT science writing master's degree, and Seed has a very active internship. But it's still kind of funny.

So, when I was in Florence, I bought a tiny leather journal to write spare thoughts in...things I want to use for songs/plays/whatever later on. I left it at home, so here's my spare thought today: I think there should be a character who's confined to a wheelchair but has otherwise made himself so physically outrageous, through tattoos, piercings, etc, with the singular goal of having that be the first thing people say about him, instead of "he's confined to a wheelchair." I guess in my mental image of him, he failed.

Does Anyone Else...

...conflate Elliot Stabler and Eliot Spitzer?

Come on! They even sort of look alike. And they're both, like, upstanding men of the law.

The Great, Ambitious, All-In-One Italy Post!

[Update 06/04/06: Now with all three cities!]

I just flew in from Italy, and boy...ah, forget it. It's about 10 bajillion (10^umpteenth) degrees in here—ooh, aren't these south-facing windows lovely?—and I have no patience for frivolity! Still, I plan to write a blindingly witty post that encompasses an entire week of traveling around Italy with my family. This will mostly be accomplished by putting in lots of pictures with clever or meaningful captions. You will be able to see all the beautiful things I have seen on the days when I felt like dragging my camera around. And so it begins.

Prologue: All Roads Lead To Rome, Change In Atlanta

See my last post for all the gritty details on my false start. After a hellish night of walking around my house alone, failing to form coherent sexual fantasies in lieu of general anxiety, and ending up at the piano only to find myself belting "I'm Still Here," I made it to JFK again. Everything went so shockingly smoothly on the second attempt that I was at the gate for my 1:30 pm flight at 10:20 am. Great.

On both of my flights I sat next to Europeans currently residing in the US: First a British artist who could got a job as an art/art history instructor at a college in Columbia, South Carolina (not his first choice of locale), and then an Italian gentleman currently residing in Virginia and only returning to Italy for business. I finally got to see King Kong on the flight to Italy and we only experienced a few minutes of insane turbulence or, as the pilot called it, "rough air." I adore the names they give painful flight..."We're going through a patch of rough air," "Please fasten your seatbelt, we're going to experience some weather," etc.

We landed, and Angelo drove me from the airport to the Hotel Britannia. He took the scenic route (of course...a stranger in a strange land doesn't know squat re cab fare) and I got to see a pit of the city, including the Colosseum, which the fam had seen while I was trying to sleep the night before. I also saw a sign that said (in Italian), "Catena: Quality Meat Since 1936." I didn't get to take a picture for Jen. Aw.

Rome Is Where the Reart Is

I only took one day of pictures in Rome, and that was the first day at the Vatican. Here we see light streaming into St. Peter's. Aw, God's smiling! St. Peter's is a rather vain little church, as it has markers on the floor showing where all other major cathedrals would come up to, were their entryways aligned. St. P's B is bigger than all of them. Much bigger.

We took a small, personal-ish tour around the Vatican with Hillary, a Brit currently living in Italy (and with a strange distaste for the UK) who gives lots of tours. She was occasionally discombobulated, but fun, entertaining and informative, and she couldn't stop talking about Rafael. "He was just gorgeous!" She made it sound like Rafael was so popular with the ladies, he died because he had an excruciatingly exhausting night of wild sex and fell so stricken that doctors did a blood letting and killed him. It sort of sounds like a load of crap to me, but I like the idea of Rafael being too hot to handle. She also ardently defended Michelangelo against charges of misogynism. I mean, I always thought he was just a huge homo, but apparently lots of people think he was really anti-women. I don't know...if I could make men as hot as Michelangelo's, I don't think I'd do many pieces of chicks either.

Ooh, there's the fam in the Vatican! The Jews are invading. Watch out...

Oh, I also committed a ridiculous faux pas by, um, lying down in the Sistine Chapel. I was called up immediately, but jeez louise, don't they realize that a packed room of cocked heads isn't the best way to appreciate art? And it's nice that they want everyone to be quiet, but the constant sushing is a little much. The chapel's pretty awesome, though. I liked the pairs of little gold men surrounding pillars...very theatrical and enticing.

I saw a hot priest as we were leaving the Vatican and tried to take a picture, but he stared me down. I did, however, find and purchase a "Hot Priests of Rome" calendar. To see it you'll have to visit me in my apartment.

On my first night in Italy I had a horrible meal. The concierge at the hotel sent us to, like, his friend's restaurant where my pizza had unripe (wan green) tomatoes and the house wine paled in comparison to Franzia. At least the meals got better. Best meal, in fact, was shortly after in the Jewish ghetto.

We got a tour of the old Jewish ghetto by this fun young Roman Jew named Micaela. She was very knowledgeable and very upbeat and went on a few rants about politics (the government is fascist, the church is a joke and a shame, etc). We learned quite a bit about the history of Jews in Rome, and the tour was a good chance to walk around a nice area of the city that wasn't a traditional tourist hot spot. For lunch we ate traditional Roman Jewish food (after we got closed out of our first choice restaurant because of my dad's attire: "I'm sorry sir, but...your shorts!"). We all had fried artichokes and I had a great pasta dish with dried meat. Mmm.

Also in Rome, we went on a hunt for the Pinko Bag. Eh? Pinko Bag? Natalie, far more fashion conscious than I (the best I can do is make fun of V when he wears more than three articles that scream Abercrombie...that was Saturday before I "left"), noticed that a bunch of hip looking gals in Rome all had black bags with "Pinko Bag" written in sequins. There were even knock-offs that just said "Pink Bag." So we went on a hunt for the store Pinko. First we walked down the main shopping street, passing the world's smallest sovereign nation on the way...no, that's not the Vatican, it's the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, or, SMOM. It's located at Via Condotti 68, and it's a Knights Templar sort of thing. Very fun. The girl who had given Natalie directions to Pinko Shop was horribly mistaken, so we wound up taking the bus across the river, through a good part of Rome to the OTHER shopping district, where after about 45 minutes of walking, we found Pinko Shop and bought Natalie the last black sequined authentic Pinko Bag in Rome. Victory!

OK, that's all I feel like writing about Rome for now. I'm going to publish this and take a few minutes to break...will continue with Firenze shortly. For now, enjoy the Italian countryside, as experienced on the train between the two cities. Take a few minutes to experience inner peace, as if you, too, are riding on a train through Italy. Pretend there aren't tunnels ever mile that put extreme pressure on your ears. Just imagine you're listening to your awesome "Two Nouns" iPod playlist, hearing songs like "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," "Comfort and Joy," and "Zak and Sara" all the way to Florence.

Wash Your Face And Drive Me To Firenze

When we arrived in Florence, our cab driver knew exactly where our hotel was, offhand. It would have been less surprising were our hotel not a tiny converted convent outside the super-touristy area of the city. We stayed right by the (out of session) university and Piazza SS Annunziata, which came to be known as the "sketchy piazza" as the walk from the Duomo through the piazza to our hotel included passing three drunken homeless men on the corner who would frequently mumble at us and give us the finger.

We headed over to our reservation at the Uffizi Gallery and ran into Jake Weissman (sp?) of Scarsdale High School fame. He was there with a friend from work, and they heartily recommended we see the David. This was good, as we had tickets for the David, and Brook The Subletter had said the David wasn't worth it. Jake said the David was SO worth it. Right on. Anyway, the Uffizi Gallery kind of blew, through only minimal fault of its own. It was PACKED with tourists and tour groups and we had to fight to see every painting. See enough Baby Jesuses who look like Yoda, and the fight just doesn't seem worth it any more. We did see the Major Botticellis, which were refreshing partially because they were famous, and there's always a rush in that, but mostly because they depicted Greek/Roman mythology which meant they were livelier, looser and, most importantly, entirely free of ugly-ass Baby Jesuses. There was also a cool Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit, mostly on his scientific thought. By the time we got down there, we really weren't able to give it the proper time.

We had a hard time escaping the tourism of Florence. Everything within half a mile of the obscenely huge duomo (see right) is packed with tourists and street vendors selling imitation leather to tourists. Now might be a good time to touch on the ever-relevant subject of race. Wow. And we think we have racial issues in America. I don't think I saw a single black resident who wasn't on the streets selling cheap shit. Admittedly, they all seemed to be from Africa and therefore are more "The Immigrants" than "The Black People," but still, we recognize visual cues. I didn't get to talk to any actual Italians about race, but I'd be curious.

I got a hot, hot leather jacket in Florence. Too bad it's unbelievably hot here in NYC. I have no occasion to wear it. Maybe some enchantedly cool evening I can put it on and strut around looking like the bad girl I'll never be. (Oh, off-topic aside: I was looking at a scientific paper today I'm going to be reporting on, and I saw the English translation of the questions on sex they gave to the college-aged subjects. For the questions about experiences with intercourse, they had, as option number one, "Have not attempted intercourse" and then all of the options assuming the responded had had sex. Um, where's the "attempted intercourse but failed" option? This is a serious scientific flaw. I'm, like, reporting them. Or something.) Anyway, back to the important things in life: my kickass new jacket. I'll find a way to wear it before late October...you'll see!

We ate what was possibly our best overall meal (rival will come in Venice section) at Antico Noe, a small restaurant on what Fodor's described as one of the more unsavory half-blocks in Florence. They gave us this incredible bread to start with, just dripping in olive oil and salt. Oh, man, was it good. I got pasta with truffles, which wasn't quite as heavenly as I'd imagined, but what still very good.

On the last day of Florence, we saw the David. He didn't seem to want to go out with me, but I totally have a crush on him. So hot. So perfect. So immobile. And so huge! I had no idea how big this thing was. He's big. His expression is also far more worried/contemplative than I had realized from the pictures. I also hadn't really realized that he's holding the slingshot across his back. It all makes sense now. Anyway, that museum was otherwise mediocre...some cool unfinished Michelangelo sculptures and instruments. Oh, instruments! There was this bowl filled with water and two handles you could rub with your wet hands to generate a sound. This German dude was so excited he just stood there, eagerly rubbing the handles, showing everyone else how to do it, and beaming in his pride. He could make the sound! Do you people not understand? He made the fucking sound! So, yeah, as we walked through that exhibit, we heard naught but the wailing of the bowl.

After that museum, we walked across the river and up to the Piazza Michelangelo, a beautiful place that overlooks the city. The first photograph in this post is brought to you from there. Passing through that side of the Arno we got a little taste of what non-tourist Florence is like. Finally, we saw some outdoor cafes, with people just sitting and hanging out. As my mom pointed out, all the plazas in Spain have coffee shops around them, but in Italy there's pretty much no place to sit with a view of the piazza. Here there were little gathering areas; it was adorable. The hike up to that Piazza also got us some welcome fresh air and exercise, and it was one of my favorite parts of Florence. Not my favorite part of Florence: ridiculous crowded streets. I don't know how the cars wind through those things. Maybe that's why most people seem to be on motorcycles with a few on old bikes (there, I tied in the picture).

Traffic was, however, not a problem in our final destination.

We Open In Venice

Who in God's name thought this would be a good idea? I'm just imagining the board room, "OK, so it's going to be a city...ON WATER. We go out into the sea, stick some wooden poles into the floor, wait for them to petrify, and then build an entire city on top of it. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?" Apparently this was the idea of some early Italian group who were invaded by another early Italian group and decided that their only escape was the sea. So they erected Venice. Ta-da! So now it's here and its absolutely gorgeous.

Whereas in Rome and Florence we just generally did a bad job of finding the non-touristy areas, at least in Venice we could take comfort in knowing there were really no non-touristy areas to find. Only 68,000 people actually live in Venice...that's smaller than New Rochelle. So while there are a few excruciatingly pretty residential areas, most of the people there won't be there for long. And aside from the fishy smell, it's super Romantic. That's what happens when you have an organic version of Disney World or Las Vegas. It's totally an amusement park...but it's the whole city, and it's not a cheap fake.

This fine gondolier was stationed right by our hotel. You're pushing the mullet, dear, but otherwise, lovely.

So anyway, the first night there (we only were there for a little over a day, and frankly, as much as I loved Venice, that was probably enough) we had a reservation at La Zucca (the pumpkin) at Jess Rivkin's recommendation. We didn't quite realize how long it takes to get around Venice, so by the time we got from the train station to the hotel and back to the shore by the restaurant, we were an hour late. And we didn't know where the place was, and Venice isn't exactly a grid. In fact, it's really, really hard to get around. So we asked people for directions, but the first few attempts failed to find us La Zucca. So then my dad had the bright idea to ask this totally crazy looking dude who was being followed around by two dogs of extremely different sizes. He began to lead us through deserted alleys (of which there were many) and Natalie and I were half-convinced he was going to mug, and perhaps kill, us all. He just kept walking and muttering, and petting the dogs until he led us straight to La Zucca. Stunning. As was the food. Once they got a table for us, we had probably the best meal of our trip in a homey wooden room overlooking the water (what isn't?). I had a stunning pumpkin-ricotta flan. Wow.

The next day we were tourists in St. Marks. You may have heard that there are pigeons in this famous Piazza. You're right. Wow, are there a lot of pigeons. This young fellow was clearly worried about picking up The Avian Flu (he had no reason to fear). It was all beautiful, anyway, although the touristiness was a bit overwhelming. We headed out fairly quickly to explore the rest of the city, via a walk to the Jewish ghetto. The ghetto in Venice was actually the first, and the word "ghetto" comes from the name of the area, "campo gheto." What else did we do? Really, little else, just walked around frickin' Venice, bitches!

The restaurant on our last night was high quality (had a zucchini and cheese appetizer that was just to DIE for, dahling), but the waiter clearly hated us. Like, when we were ordering desserts, he started to leave after the first person ordered and then, when the second started, looked at us like, "Oh, you wanted more?" Pshaw! Did I mention that we spent almost every dinner shamelessly talking about other Scarsdale people? It's just a little embarrassing, but what the heck, it was so much fun. We had one night talking about whether certain parents participated in a swinging circle...I didn't know those were actually the rumors, but apparently, they are. Oh, the craziness of the hometown! Somehow the fact that a 2004 SHS grad was recently Playboy's Cyber Girl of the Week seems rather tame (props to her, by the way...although I question the decision to use her real name).

The next morning we took a water taxi (so cool!) to the airport. I was scared to death the whole time that my precipitously balanced, wildly rocking suitcase was going to fall overboard. Luckily we arrived safely and, after a bit of confusion, we got a ride to the new airport, which turned out to be steps from the old one. We flew home on a fairly uneventful flight (although I gained a strong appreciation for this Onion article). We arrived home to our sweltering house, and I went to my apartment shortly thereafter, only to find I had just missed Fleet Week. Damn you, fate!

So that's it for the Italy post! I hope you've enjoyed it. Now back to my irregularly scheduled blogging. Ciao!

How Do You Say "I Could Kill Someone" in Italian?

Oh, wait, it doesn't matter. Because I'm not in Italy.

So, I've never been quite so excited as I was for my Italy trip. It's my first day(s) off since New Years, and I've been eagerly anticipating time away from work and sleep deprivation and with my family. And everything was going well...perhaps...too well?

So we get to the airport and we're on line to check in. I pull out my passport and I'm flipping through it. My first thought is, "hey, where are my australia stamps?" and my second thought is, "hey, why are there no stamps in here from after 2002?" and my third thought is "why don't I just flip to the front to make sure this isn't my expired passport, which I probably threw away anyway," and my fourth thought is "oh, fuck."

So we take a minute to flip out, and we call my parents' friends who graciously spent about an hour looking in the two places I could think of where the passport might be. They don't find it...so my dad and I run to rebook me on tomorrow's flight where they only have business class available, so my parents will have to spend a few thousand extra dollars for my gaff...they're thrilled. But by the time we actually get around to booking, there are NO more seats on the flight. Finally, they get me on a flight tomorrow that goes to Atlanta and another from Atlanta to Rome (Let's play a round of name that airline! If you said Delta, you know your hubs!) Luckily because it's coach and a stopover, changing my flight only costs my parents a whopping $2.96. I'm happy I'm not screwing my parents over too much.

By now it's 4:16 and their flight is at 5:20, and Natalie's standing with the luggage in another building. We're talking to the woman who's getting my tickets set up and she says, "You're flight's at 5:20? You have exactly four minutes to check in." So I RUN to Natalie and we run back. By now Natalie is, understandably, a little more than a little annoyed with the whole situation, pretty much being told to stand in one spot on her own for two hours and then being rushed like mad with the luggage. They check in, I get a car home, walk in the door, walk to the one place I didn't tell the friends to check, and find my passport within 15 minutes. The car to JFK is booked, my new tickets and passport are in my bag, the parents are texted, emailed and messaged, and I have a night to kill and a stomach to fill.

You know what word I DON'T love it when a man says? (Oh, "Sneakers" reference! Booya!)

We PWN the NYT

Speaking of cultural references (Sergi), check out my hip and nifty internet-speak. I'm so young and with it!

Yeah, it's two in the morning and I'm blogging because I want to brag. Tonight, Adam and I performed a feat almost unknown to mankind. We COMPLETED THE CRYPTIC CROSSWORD, mothafuckaaaaas!

For those of you who don't think that while we're worshipping God, God's worshiping Will Shortz, the cryptic crossword is a novelty puzzle that comes on the same page as the Sunday crossword once every six weeks or so. It's largely made of acronyms and wordplay, and you're likely to look through the whole thing without getting a single clue. Unlike the regular crossword, they do tell you how many letters are in each word of an answer. Here's the first cryptic crossword clue I ever figured out: "Oakland ball players sleep where horses race." Five letters. Think. I don't want to put the answer directly in the post, so suffice it to say it's the big headline word on this page (don't mouse over if you don't want to see). You see how it all comes together. The Oakland ballplayers. Where they sleep. Where the horses race. But you have to pull that from the clue. And that was one of the ones I GOT. There weren't many that day.

So tonight Adam Levine and I hunkered down and just went for it and did the whole damn thing. Well, he did more than I did, but I got maybe a third of them, and I think that's frickin' impressive.

In other news, earlier today I went to a Derby party in honor of the Kentucky Derby. We each picked horses out of a hat and put a two dollar bet in. The winner would get $38, while the person whose horse came in last got their two bucks back. I drew "Keyed Entry," a 30-to-1 long shot. The race started, and after just a little while, Keyed Entry pulled ahead, clearly in front of second place Sinister Minister. I couldn't believe it...with about 3/4 of the race over, Keyed Entry was winning! When all of a sudden, that sonofamare Barbaro came rushing ahead, beating everyone else by over six lengths. The nerve! Keyed Entry didn't even place or show...I couldn't see him at the end. We waited to find the full standings...was Keyed Entry fourth? Fifth? Sixth? It wouldn't help, I just wanted to know, so I could feel good about ole KE's performance. The stats came up, and Keyed Entry was DEAD LAST. 20th out of 20 horses. Which was awesome, because I got my two bucks back. Go, Keyed Entry!

Thiiiis Is My (beat) Once-A-Year Book!

I'm at work but feeling pretty physically crappy...last night around 10:30 I was suddenly hit by a mac truck of dizziness, and I spent the Daily Show and Colbert Report running back-and-forth between watching the television and praying to the porcelain goddess. I felt good enough to go to sleep but woke up this morning with a bitch of a headache and some residual dizziness and nausea. I managed to drag myself out of bed, to the gym for a shower (Con Ed may have finally cut off the common electricity, which our landlord apparently never paid for, so we had no hot water), and to work. I'm glad I came in, but my usual post-lunch exhaustion is especially strong today, combined with all the now thankfully low-level crappiness. So I'm going to blog for a couple of minutes to keep my spirits up.

Onto the subject of the post. A few people may know that I have a hard and fast rule about my reading: I may read one and only one Chuck Palahniuk nover per year. Two years ago during dead week I read Lullaby, last year at Myrtle Beach I read Choke and now that it's almost exactly one year later, it's time to choose another. Right now I'm thinking Stranger Than Fiction, his collection of true stories, although there's this one about a house where people gather and strange things start happening (WHAT!? In a CHUCK PALAHNIUK NOVEL!?) that sounds really cool. Neither of those were at the B&N I dropped by this morning (so many gift certificates), so I've added three of their books to the list of possibilities. Anyway, hopefully I will have chosen by the end of the day. If you have any immediate tips, please let me know.

And speaking of books, I just finished a great novel by a Yale professor Barry McCrea. My friend Beth took a class with him last year and really (really) liked him, and then I saw him listed in the Advocate as a gay-writer-you-haven't-heard-of-and-you-should-HANG-YOUR-HEAD-IN-SHAME. So it turns out he has a book, The First Verse, about a contemporary Dublin student who gets involved in a literary cult. I'm always a huge fan of novels and art that combine insightful realism with an elegant touch of the supernatural (there's less supernatural here than in Palahniuk, but since he's just sitting in the paragraph above, I should mention the tie). I started admiring McCrea when I read a brief essay of his in the Sex Week at Yale magazine. He talked about unrequited love (it shows up in this book, too), and I felt somewhat grateful that he had taken what everyone refers to as an "obsessive crush" and legitimized it—couldn't hurt that it was coming from a cute, gay, brilliant, Irish teacher either. Right. He had some great behavioral observations that resonated with me, and his characters in this book are just as excitingly real. It's very prose-y, but in a way that works. Sometimes that shit doesn't, but here it does. Read it, y'all.

More later, I hope.

Pre-War

I met some of my neighbors tonight! It's pretty exciting. As I may or may not have mentioned, my building is largely occupied by one enormous extended family...relatives of the landlord. The landlord is actually the nephew of some uber-landlord, and somehow acquired this building from Uncle Ownesman-Hattan. So he lives on the second floor with his wife and daughter, and some other large portion of the family lives on the fourth floor (they're above me, so it's a little harder to tell who's where). We're on the third floor, in the smaller apartment, and Gertrude lives in the larger apartment. I've never met Gertrude, but Amy has. She seemed nice, I believe. As far as I knew, the fifth floor was totally unoccupied and currently under renovation. Not so!

I was coming home from transferring the laundry from washer to dryer when I see two men around 60 standing outside searching through their keys. I opened the door for them, and one asked me, "Did you just move in?" "Oh, a couple of months ago," I said. "You?" "We've been living here for 35 years." So a while, then. Actually, I believe my cousin Larry's done the same thing...stayed in the same Hell's Kitchen apartment since he first came to New York with the dream of acting. And the often rent-stabilized neighborhood changed around him, just as it changed around these guys. They've been here since 12 years before my landlord was born. Hardcore. Very hardcore.

But also incredibly endearing. To have that kind of immediate stability—same space, same person—for 35 years has an enormous appeal to it. It's almost like living a quiet country life in the heart of the nation's biggest city. I guess that's just what marriage is...the ability to have home, to have intimacy, to have a comforting anchor besides yourself in the most otherwise worldly of circumstances. I look at these guys, and I look at the couple from Thailand who runs the laundromat (I was teaching them some English words last week) and, even though they work together and live together, seem so happy in each other's presence and so comfortable in their banter, and I realize that I really, really do want to get married someday. And not just to any good guy, but someone I feel a real comfort and intimacy with. It's not about the structure for me...the picket fence (ew), the kids' soccer games (the hideous memories!), the community organizations. It's about finding someone who feels like home. I think that's a reasonable goal for the next 20 years or so...

Never Say Die

So, it's been a month. That's a little over the top on the blogging neglect, but I haven't been feeling the urge much lately. Still, as the post title advises, I never say die.

Amy's heading to Italy for a month, so I'll be somewhat lonelier and therefore somewhat more likely to blog. This will be good for anyone who's still reading, even with the break. I will, however, be getting a temporary roommate, this dude Brook who used to date my friend Lara and ran into Amy as they were both traveling the world. I saw his documentary about his trip, and he seems reasonably cool, so I'm not fearing for my life or anything. It'll be an interesting experience to suddenly be rooming with someone I've never met. We shall see how that goes.

This weekend's been lovely and low key but not dull. Friday night I saw Festen with mom, a play I wouldn't recommend, but if you have to go, no need to weasel your way out of it. It was pretty trite and some of the acting was heinous (cough)Ali McGraw(/cough), but I wasn't sleeping through it, which is more than I can say for anything written by Eugene O'Neill. Right.

Yesterday I went to the gym (the guns are shaping up!) and had went with Ethan to Joe: The Art of Coffee (a coffee shop, not a movie). Nice place...I think I prefer Esperanto and the Hungarian Pastry Shop, but I'll put it in third place, still above The Coffee Pot. That's just in Manhattan, of course. Slave to the Grind still reigns supreme as the unsurpassed paragon of coffee shop greatness. If anybody knows any other awesome ones in Manhattan, recommendations are always appreciated. After time with Ethan, I hung around for a while, doing crosswords. I'd kept the evening free so I could buy Mike alcohol after the (NINE HOUR!) MCAT if he didn't feel like mush. He felt like mush. So around 10 PM, I took the train down to see Cat's beautiful (albeit messy) new apartment in the East Village, and then we met Evan for a bite at Yaffa. Good stuff, fun conversation.

This morning I met V for brunch, which was lovely as always. We went to the eatery (it would be a capital e if its logo weren't a large lower-case e) and I got a great poached eggs dish. It was delicious, as were some of the other customers. We walked around the neighborhood a bit, chatted and parted ways. I was somewhat impressed that Vaughan just drove in this morning despite the downpour, no questions. I think I have a lot of friends who would just call to say they didn't want to face the rain (or get out of bed) and cancel on me with hardly an apology. Props to V for not canceling. Afterwards I got coffee with Greg, and we went over the outline for his next game. I'm really excited for it...the game sounds like tons of fun, infused, as always, with his great wit and knack for creating amusing, tough-but-doable puzzles. It's going to be much longer than the first game, with better art. And he's got a new concept for the music, which should make for a more fluid and subtly diverse score. And he's got a marketing scheme up his sleeve that may work wonders. I'm going to help develop that aspect.

Now I'm just hanging around. I did the Sunday puzzle and chatted with Natalia, and I'll heat up some soup for dinner pretty soon. Good times, great oldies. Sadly, Kool 96.7 seems to be gone with the wind. It's upsetting to lose something from my formative years.

Goal for this week: Be as not tired and therefore productive at work as I was last week. I've had quite a few weeks of total exhaustion and slow research. I finally picked up the pace last week and got a bunch done for an upcoming article. Rock out.